n November 21st, 1980, a fire broke out at the Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel and Casino. 87 people died; more than 700 were injured. It was the deadliest fire in the city’s history. It’s a brief few lines of words for a commencement, which prove to be strangely inconsequential – followed by a rather lengthy titles sequence, before moving to the story proper, which begins seven hours prior to that historic event.

Main-room comedian Pete Finnegan (Billy Gardell) owes money all around town; he’s lost countless bets, his car is about to be repoed, and he seems to be running out of options for coming up with quick cash. And his attitude doesn’t help; his curtness toward fellow employees only adds to the likelihood that he won’t be able to get out of his financial jams with ease. “He’ll get his money.”

Pete’s a typical down-on-his-luck antihero, the type of moderately sympathetic, minimally likable, poor-decision-making fool who doesn’t appear as if in any immediate peril but also isn’t terribly important in the context of the surrounding establishment or its denizens. Tough-talking Jimmy (Christopher Titus) is a wannabe mobster; Ginny (Jaina Lee Ortiz) is a friendly cocktail waitress; Akosh (Shaan Sharma) works for an airline; Johnnie (Jeremy Luke) is an entertainer with an accordion-like instrument; and Jackie (Emily Alabi) is a ghostly cleaning lady who speaks incessantly about good and bad luck and the spiritual powers of her ancestors. An eclectic assortment of other characters move in and out of a slot machine room in which Pete sits, inserts coins, and pulls a lever, as if he’s a permanent fixture around which all the picture’s actions take place. And jazz music plays nonstop, while the camera remains obsessed with moving in circles all throughout the claustrophobic arena.

As additional personas continue to filter in and out of the tight space, it feels as if “The Vortex” will take place entirely in the one setting, designed to be a single-take film, never cutting away from the main camera. Whether or not it succeeds is irrelevant (several cuts are obvious to those looking for them, notably when the frame nestles onto the back of a seated person); the reason behind using such an artistic choice is lost on this particular story. The bulk of it is Pete holding conversations with these various people, some of whom are chatty, others of whom want to start trouble, but almost all of whom trade dialogue that isn’t especially original or engaging. It may sound off-the-cuff and candid, but if the audience is a fly on the wall, eavesdropping on this casino melange, it’s far from exciting; this is certainly not the behind-the-scenes expose that would merit a theatrical examination.

Character development does unfold, but it doesn’t amount to much other than painting Pete to be a general underachiever, underwater with a bad crowd and fresh out of second-chances. And some of the acting is just mediocre enough that it pulls down the limited interest in what is predominantly a one-person show (Gardell is, thankfully, excellent). A hint of danger, a smidge of comedy, a glimmer of romance, and a dash of drama aren’t enough to prevent “The Vortex” from being exceedingly dull. And the finale couldn’t be more anticipated, resorting not just to an expected climax, but also utilizing flashbacks to moments that transpired mere minutes before (the laziest kind of setup, suggesting that viewers have the most transient of attention spans). It definitely doesn’t work in its favor that the outcome of the MGM Grand is already known from the opening – an excuse of sorts to build this rather lifeless tale around, not even bothering to solve Pete’s predicaments in a satisfyingly resolute or cinematic way.

– Mike Massie